


Summer Fling

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 01:02:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for notfoulbarrow on Tumblr. Light BDSM.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Fling

Everybody wanted what they didn’t have.

It was a universal truth. Thomas had known it for years, since he’d spent his childhood watching his father bounce unfaithfully from one fancy woman to the next, only coming home, briefly, whenever Thomas’ mother threatened to leave for good. Nothing had changed since then. Matthew Crawley had been saved from his dreary middle-class life by the unlikeliest of circumstances, but all he wanted was to return to tedium. Lady Mary wished she’d been born a boy. Lord Grantham wished she had, too. William wanted Daisy and Daisy wanted Thomas. If any of them ever got what they wanted, even for a moment, they’d immediately be wishing for something else.

But not Thomas. Thomas, for the first time in his life, had exactly what he’d always wanted: a man. Not just any man, but a rich, titled man, a duke, who was completely smitten with him. By the end of the summer, they’d be living together, and Thomas couldn’t wait. They were perfect for each other, even if the wealthy, well-born Duke of Crowborough liked nothing more than to pretend he was a servant.

“What do you think of that, sir?” Philip blinked at Thomas, all but batting his eyelashes. _Try that look with Mr. Carson around, and you’ll be on the streets before you can say Christmas._ Thomas didn’t say it. A certain leeway was permitted within the realm of fantasy.

“Let me see.” Thomas held out his hand. Diffidently, Philip passed over Thomas’ shoes. He hadn’t actually done anything to them. Thomas didn’t trust him within a mile of the shoe polish, but Thomas, sitting in his stocking feet by a roaring fire in Philip’s bedroom, made a show of examining them in detail. “No,” he determined. “That’s just not good enough.”

“Oh.” Philip looked so crestfallen that, for a moment, Thomas almost wanted to comfort him. It was a strange urge. He wasn’t normally the type who longed to give succour to his fellow man, but Philip was different. Philip gave Thomas a lot of urges he hadn’t previously felt, and not all of them were related to the bedroom.

“It’s not acceptable. You’ll need to do them again.” Thomas adopted the tone of an aggrieved aristocrat, putting on his best upstairs accent. He sounded idiotic to his own ears, but Philip had never complained. Philip never tried to put on a working-class accent, either, which Thomas thought was probably best for all concerned.

“I’m sorry, my Lord.” Philip held out his hands for the shoes. Thomas grabbed Philip’s necktie. It was Thomas’ own, made of cheap stiff material, quite unlike Philip’s soft silk tie, which Thomas currently wore around his neck.

“Do them with your tongue.” The suggestion brought a spark to Philip’s eye, and a twist to Thomas’ stomach. The twist grew stronger when Philip dropped to his knees on the rug in front of him.

“Yes, sir.” He lifted Thomas’ right foot and slipped on the shoe.

It was a bloody ridiculous way to clean shoes. Thomas could think of a dozen things wrong with it, beyond the obvious, but as Philip knelt in front of him, his tongue licking up and down the leather and an erection poorly concealed inside his trousers, Thomas had to admit it wasn’t the worst way to spend an evening. Any time he spent with Philip was worthwhile, even if Thomas sometimes wished they could dispense with the games and just get down to the sex.

“How’s that, my lord?” After a while, Philip sat up, his hands on Thomas’ thighs.

“Don’t touch me,” Thomas snapped, and Philip yanked his hands away. “Don’t ever presume to touch me,” he went on, because he knew Philip would like it. “You’re nothing. You’re worthless.” Any man who spoke to Thomas like that, aristocrat or no, would have got a punch in the face, or at least a mouthful of spit in his soup. Philip bowed his head, a smile on his lips. This was what he wanted. Thomas didn’t know why, but he did it, because he loved Philip.

Thomas stood up, reluctantly leaving his comfortable chair, and pulled Philip to his feet. “You need to be taught a lesson.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“You sound altogether too pleased with that, Philip. I don’t think you understand quite what I mean.” Thomas wasn’t sure, either. He tossed Philip onto the bed, then glanced about. Philip’s tennis racquet leaned against the wardrobe. Good enough, Thomas thought. And it had the added benefit of being novel. “Take off your clothes.”

Philip complied eagerly, leaving them in a pile by the bed for Thomas to pick up later. Thomas unfastened the tie from around his own neck and lashed it around Philip’s left wrist, securing him to the bedpost. He pulled off Philip’s tie, leaning over his shoulders to loosen the knot from behind, and fastened it to the other hand. He left Philip there, secured to the bed, and went to fetch the racquet.

Thomas didn’t understand the appeal of painful sex. No, that wasn’t true. He understood the appeal of certain types of pain. He liked nails down his back, casual smacks on the arse, hard love bites that chafed beneath his starched collars for days afterwards. The usual stuff. He couldn’t understand why anybody would want true pain and humiliation in bed. He had enough of that in his daily life.

“Oh, Jesus.” Philip moaned ecstatically as Thomas slapped his bare backside with the tennis racquet, again and again. The skin grew redder with every smack, and Philip’s cock grew harder, twitching eagerly. The sight got Thomas going, as well, and after a final hard swat Thomas tossed the racquet aside.

“Have you learned your lesson?” Thomas hoped so. His arm was getting sore.

“Oh, yes, sir.” Philip was genuinely breathless.

“Good. Then it’s time for a new one.” Thomas knew exactly where Philip kept his jelly. He pulled it out of the drawer and slathered his hands haphazardly. He pushed a finger roughly into Philip, then followed it quickly with another. They’d done it so often recently, Philip needed very little in the way of preparation. Thomas didn’t need much, either. His cock strained at the inside of his trousers. He pushed them down, just far enough to be out of the way, and slid inside Philip.

There had been other lovers, before, but none like him. It frightened Thomas, sometimes, feeling this much emotion. _We are all in all to one another,_ Philip had written, in one of the letters Thomas kept in his bedroom and read over and over again. _The evening star and the morning sun._ The romanticism of it made Thomas swoon like a lady, collapsing on his narrow, uncomfortable bed with the letter clutched to his chest. He’d never been so happy. Still, there was something, some small part of Thomas that whispered: _The sun will burn you if you’re not careful._ And Thomas wasn’t careful when it came to Philip, not in the least.

“Thomas.” Philip grunted, and Thomas picked up his pace. He reached around with the other hand and grabbed Philip’s cock. With a few expertly timed strokes, Philip was coming, spewing a blasphemous litany of profanities he must have picked up at Eton in his own, usual accent. The sight and the sound and the smell of him all conspired to push Thomas over the edge. He spent himself inside Philip, and Philip groaned beneath him.

Afterwards, when Thomas had freed Philip of his restraints, they lay together, wrapped in each other’s arms. Thomas’ head rested on Philip’s warm, bare skin and Philip’s hand stroked his hair. “You really are quite wonderful.” Philip pressed a kiss to Thomas’ head. “And I do rather love you.”

“I love you, too.” Thomas had never meant anything more. And for once in his life, Thomas didn’t want anything else.


End file.
